Identification, quantification and analysis of observable anthropogenic debris along swiss river and lakes (IQAASL)

IQAASL is a project sponsored by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment to quantify shoreline trash along swiss lakes and rivers. Multiple small scale litter surveys are completed at different locations within a designated survey area. For the year 2020/2021 the survey areas were defined by the municipalities that border the Aare, Rhône, Ticino and Linth/Limmat rivers and any lakes or rivers that contribute to one of these rivers.

What is a litter survey?

A litter survey is the identification and count of all anthropogenic objects found within a delimited area, in this study all surveys were bordered on one side by water (a river or lake). Each object is placed into one of 260 categories¹. The location, date, survey dimensions and the total number of objects in each category is noted.

Purpose of the surveys

The survey results help ALL stakeholders identify the items that make up the mass of trash found in the natural environment and where those objects are most likely to be found. The surveys answer the following questions:

  • What items are found?
    • The most abundant objects from the water feature and the survey area sorted by total object count
  • How much is found ? (total weights and item counts)
    • Total object count, total weight and weight of plastics
  • How often are these items found?
    • How often the most abundant items were identified
  • Where do you find the most?
    • Pieces of trash per meter (pcs/m): the ratio of number of objects found to the length of the shoreline for each survey location

These are the most frequently asked questions and should be considered when determining any mitigation or reduction strategies.

Assumptions:

  • The more trash there is on the ground the more a person is likely to find
  • The survey results represent the minimum amount of trash at that site²
  • For each survey: finding one item does not effect the chance of finding another³

Purpose of this report

Summarize the results for the water feature and define the magnitude of those results with respect to the rest of the survey area.

Contents of this report

Scope: description of water feature

  • survey locations
  • lakes and rivers
  • municipalities and effected population

Survey dimensions: locations, aggregated totals

  • weights and measures: cumulative
  • weights and measures: cumulative by survey location
  • survey totals by location: pcs/m by date
  • material type: % of total

Trash removed: the most abundant objects

  • the most common objects from the survey area
  • the most common objects from all the survey areas
  • pcs/m of most common objects for all survey locations of the water feature

Trash removed: the most frequent

  • The rate at which the most frequent objects were identified

Trash removed: utility

  • utility classification: % total of all objects found

Annex

  • effective data: report of missing records
  • correlation of results to local conditions
  • survey location coordinates
  • itemized list of objects removed

More information

For more information about the project visit project home.

If you would like more information about this survey area please contact:

  1. Swiss federal office for the environment - Municipal waste section
  2. analyst@hammerdirt.ch

¹ The EU guide on monitoring marine litter
² There is most likely more trash at the survey site, but certainly not less than what was recorded.
³ Independent observations : stats stackexchange

Results: Thunersee

Scope

Survey locations, municipalities

For the period between 2020-01 and 2021-04, 2,790 objects were removed and identified in the course of 31 surveys. Those surveys were conducted at 7 different locations. There are 4 different municipalities represented in these results with a combined population of approximately 63,492

The municipalities in this report:

Beatenberg, Spiez, Thun, Unterseen

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Survey dimensions, location and aggregated totals.

Cumulative totals all data

The cumulative results from 31 samples, weights are in kilograms, time is in hours

index # samples pieces of trash meters surveyed m² surveyed total weight plastic > 5mm weight plastic < 5mm weight labor hours
summary total
Thunersee 31 2,790 2,166 9,513 19 5.89 0.0 106.0

Cumulative totals by water feature

# samples pieces of trash meters surveyed m² surveyed total weight plastic > 5mm weight plastic < 5mm weight labor hours
location
AugustMützenbergStrandweg 1 7 9 12 0 0.00100 0.000000 2
Camping Gwatt Strand 1 43 25 101 3 3.02000 0.000010 3
Delta park 1 69 35 70 0 0.05000 0.000000 2
Sundbach strand 2 104 44 805 0 0.14000 0.000000 6
Thun Strandbad 2 233 181 1,723 0 0.19000 0.000000 6
Weissenau-Neuhaus 12 1,879 1,045 3,728 2 1.18290 0.000345 49
thunersee_spiez_meierd_1 12 455 827 3,074 14 1.30765 0.000004 38

Survey totals and material type

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The most abundant objects

Combined, the ten most abundant objects from Thunersee represent 73% of all objects found on Thunersee.

Of the most abundant objects on Thunersee, 9 are also among the most abundant in the Aare survey area.

  1. Expanded polystyrene
  2. Industrial sheeting
  3. Cigarette butts and filters
  4. Insulation: includes spray foams and foam board
  5. Food wrappers; candy, snack packaging
  6. Styrofoam < 5mm
  7. Fragmented plastics
  8. Glass or ceramic drink bottles, pieces
  9. Packaging plastic nonfood or unknown

The most abundant objects: results by survey location

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How often are these objects found?

Some objects are found often and in elevated quantities, others are found often and in small quantities and some objects are found less often but in large quantities. Knowing the diffference can help find the sources.

The number of surveys where at least one of the most abundant objects were found

Note The survey area results include the results from the current water feature

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Utility: percent of total objects collected

The utility type is based on the utilisation of the object prior to it being discarded. Objects that are found are placed into to one of the 260 categories. Those categories are grouped according to utilisation.

For example, a piece of plastic could be placed into the category 'Fragmented plastics', depending on its size. However, a piece of plastic that was once a bucket and we know this because we are familiar with either the brand or the product or if we recognize it as a piece of a bucket it is placed in the code for buckets⁸.

  • wastewater: items released from water treatment plants includes items likely toilet flushed
  • micro plastics (< 5mm): fragmented plastic items and pre-production plastic resins
  • infrastructure: items related to construction and maintenance of all infratructure items
  • food and drink: primarily single use plastic items related to consuming food and drinks outdoors
  • agriculture: primarily industrial sheeting includes mulch films
  • tobacco: primarily cigarette ends includes all smoking related material
  • recreation: includes fishing, hunting, boating and beach related objects, excludes food, drink and tobacco items
  • packaging non food and drink: packaging or wrapping material not identified as food, drink nor tobacco related
  • plastic fragments: foam and plastic fragments of indeterminate origin and use
  • personal items: accessories, hygiene and clothing related

⁸ See the annex for the complete list of objects identified, includes category and group classification - the code for a buckets is G57

More information

Contact analyst@hammerdirt.ch for any questions about the content of this report. If you would like a report for your municipality contact the Swiss federal office for the environment: Municipal waste section.

Have a great day

This project was made possible by the Swiss federal office for the environment.
This document originates from https://github.com/hammerdirt-analyst/iqals all copyrights apply.
roger@hammerdirt.ch pushed the run button on 2021-05-25.

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Annex

  1. Effective data
  2. Correlation of results
  3. Survey location GPS
  4. Inventory of all objects removed

Effective data

The data is submitted in two parts. If a survey is missing either part we check the paper records and update when possible.

All the surveys found a home in the dimensional data

All dimensional records found a home in the survey data!

Correlation of results to local conditions

The survey results for the most abundant objects were ranked against population and three other criteria for each survey location. Within a radius of 1500m of each survey location the following characteristics were calculated:

  • buildings: m² of surface area attributed to buildings

  • streets: length in meters of all roads

  • number of stream/river discharge points

The three attributes were evaluated seperately and combined - urbanization. Urbanization is the weighted value of the sum of population, buildings and streets for each survey. The values were evaluated using the Spearmans rank correlation with p= 0.1. The results can be interpreted in the following way:

  • " + " - positive correlation: the chances of finding the object and the quantity found were increased as the amount of the attrubute increased within 1500m the survey area.

  • " - " - negative correlation: neither the chances or the quantity of finding the object found were increased by this attribute, and previously it was found in greater quantities when this atribute was minimized within 1500m of the survey area.

  • " NA " - no effect: there is no statistical basis to reject a null effect by this attribute based on the current results.

Important! Results vary for each location and at each survey. A correlation is not a sign of causation.

Annex

Survey locations

latitude longitude city water_name
location
AugustMützenbergStrandweg 46.686640 7.689760 Spiez Thunersee
Camping Gwatt Strand 46.727140 7.629620 Thun Thunersee
Delta park 46.720078 7.635304 Spiez Thunersee
Sundbach strand 46.684386 7.794768 Beatenberg Thunersee
Thun Strandbad 46.739939 7.633520 Thun Thunersee
thunersee_spiez_meierd_1 46.704437 7.657882 Spiez Thunersee
Weissenau-Neuhaus 46.676583 7.817528 Unterseen Thunersee

Annex

Inventory of all items

item quantity % of total utility % of samples
code
G27 Cigarette butts and filters 646 23.2 tobacco 93.5
Gfrags Fragmented plastics 364 13.0 plastic pieces 90.3
G67 Industrial sheeting 232 8.3 agriculture 80.6
Gfoam Expanded polystyrene 220 7.9 infrastructure 80.6
G30 Food wrappers; candy, snack packaging 156 5.6 food and drink 74.2
G74 Insulation: includes spray foams and foam board 146 5.2 infrastructure 64.5
G200 Glass or ceramic drink bottles, pieces 139 5.0 food and drink 80.6
G941 Packaging plastic nonfood or unknown 73 2.6 packaging non food 45.2
G89 Plastic construction waste 40 1.4 infrastructure 48.4
G117 Styrofoam < 5mm 32 1.1 micro plastics (< 5mm) 35.5
G156 Paper fragments 30 1.1 not classified 22.6
G904 Fireworks; rocket caps, exploded parts & packa... 29 1.0 recreation 38.7
G213 Paraffin wax 25 0.9 recreation 32.3
G177 Foil wrappers, aluminum foil 23 0.8 food and drink 35.5
G922 Labels, bar codes 22 0.8 packaging non food 32.3
G23 Lids unidentified 21 0.8 packaging non food 29.0
G106 Plastic fragments angular <5mm 20 0.7 micro plastics (< 5mm) 25.8
G186 Industrial scrap 20 0.7 infrastructure 29.0
G50 String < 1cm 20 0.7 recreation 32.3
G95 Cotton bud/swab sticks 20 0.7 waste water 45.2
G24 Lid/cap rings from plastic bottles/containers 18 0.6 food and drink 29.0
G936 Sheeting ag. greenhouse film 18 0.6 agriculture 19.4
G201 Jars, glass or pottery, includes pieces 17 0.6 not classified 16.1
G21 Drink lids 17 0.6 food and drink 35.5
G153 Cups, food containers, wrappers (paper) 16 0.6 food and drink 9.7
G211 Other medical items (swabs, bandaging, adhesiv... 16 0.6 personal items 29.0
G91 Biomass holder 16 0.6 waste water 32.3
G87 Tape, masking/duct/packing 16 0.6 infrastructure 22.6
G35 Straws and stirrers 14 0.5 food and drink 25.8
G204 Construction material; bricks, pipes, cement 14 0.5 infrastructure 19.4
G208 Glass or ceramic fragments > 2.5 cm 14 0.5 not classified 12.9
G31 Lollypop sticks 13 0.5 food and drink 32.3
G25 Tobacco; plastic packaging, containers 13 0.5 tobacco 22.6
G178 Metal bottle caps, lids & pull tabs from cans 12 0.4 food and drink 22.6
G210 Other glass/ceramic 12 0.4 not classified 6.5
G98 Diapers - wipes 10 0.4 waste water 22.6
G66 Straps/bands; hard, plastic package fastener 10 0.4 infrastructure 32.3
G149 Paper packaging 10 0.4 packaging non food 12.9
G923 Tissue, toilet paper, napkins, paper towels 10 0.4 personal items 22.6
G203 Tableware ceramic or glass, cups, plates, pieces 10 0.4 not classified 12.9
G905 Hair clip, hair ties, personal accessories pl... 9 0.3 personal items 19.4
G10 Food containers single use foamed or plastic 9 0.3 food and drink 25.8
G48 Rope, synthetic 8 0.3 recreation 16.1
G152 Cigarette boxes, tobacco related paper/cardboard 7 0.3 tobacco 16.1
G131 Rubber bands 7 0.3 personal items 16.1
G908 Tape; electrical, insulating 7 0.3 infrastructure 19.4
G70 Shotgun cartridges 7 0.3 recreation 12.9
G3 Bags; plastic shopping/carrier/grocery and pieces 6 0.2 packaging non food 16.1
G175 Cans, beverage 6 0.2 food and drink 12.9
G198 Other metal pieces < 50cm 6 0.2 not classified 19.4
G73 Foamed items & pieces (non packaging/insulatio... 6 0.2 recreation 16.1
G159 Corks 6 0.2 food and drink 16.1
G100 Medical; containers/tubes/ packaging 6 0.2 waste water 12.9
G942 Plastic shavings from lathes, CNC machining 5 0.2 not classified 9.7
G90 Plastic flower pots 5 0.2 agriculture 16.1
G940 Foamed EVA for crafts and sports 5 0.2 recreation 6.5
G148 Cardboard (boxes and fragments) 5 0.2 not classified 9.7
G32 Toys and party favors 5 0.2 recreation 16.1
G170 Wood (processed) 5 0.2 agriculture 16.1
G191 Wire and mesh 5 0.2 agriculture 12.9
G33 Cups, lids, single use foamed and hard plastic 4 0.1 food and drink 12.9
G917 Terracotta balls 4 0.1 not classified 9.7
G155 Fireworks paper tubes and fragments 4 0.1 recreation 12.9
G22 Lids for chemicals, detergents (non-food) 4 0.1 infrastructure 6.5
G925 Packets: desiccant/ moisture absorbers, plasti... 4 0.1 packaging non food 6.5
G194 Cables, metal wire(s) often inside rubber or p... 4 0.1 infrastructure 9.7
G34 Cutlery, plates and trays 4 0.1 food and drink 12.9
G4 Small plastic bags; freezer, zip-lock etc. 3 0.1 packaging non food 9.7
G931 Tape-caution for barrier, police, construction... 3 0.1 infrastructure 3.2
G927 String trimmer line, used to cut grass, weeds,... 3 0.1 not classified 6.5
G125 Balloons and balloon sticks 3 0.1 recreation 9.7
G59 Fishing line monofilament (angling) 3 0.1 recreation 6.5
G933 Bags, cases for accessories; glasses, electron... 3 0.1 personal items 9.7
G921 Ceramic tile and pieces 3 0.1 infrastructure 9.7
G96 Sanitary-pads/panty liners/tampons 3 0.1 waste water 9.7
G133 Condoms incl. packaging 2 0.1 waste water 6.5
G134 Other rubber 2 0.1 not classified 3.2
G944 Pellet mass from injection molding 2 0.1 not classified 6.5
G918 Safety pins, paper clips, small metal utility ... 2 0.1 personal items 6.5
G174 Aerosol spray cans 2 0.1 infrastructure 6.5
G158 Other paper items 2 0.1 not classified 6.5
G928 Ribbons and bows 2 0.1 not classified 6.5
G165 Ice cream sticks, toothpicks, chopsticks 2 0.1 food and drink 6.5
G101 Dog feces bag 2 0.1 personal items 6.5
G103 Plastic fragments rounded <5mm 2 0.1 micro plastics (< 5mm) 6.5
G49 Rope > 1cm 2 0.1 recreation 6.5
G26 Cigarette lighters 2 0.1 tobacco 6.5
G37 Mesh bags 2 0.1 not classified 6.5
G913 Pacifier 2 0.1 personal items 6.5
G914 Paperclips, clothespins, plastic utility items 2 0.1 personal items 6.5
G176 Cans, food 1 0.0 food and drink 3.2
G114 Films <5mm 1 0.0 micro plastics (< 5mm) 3.2
G930 Foam earplugs 1 0.0 personal items 3.2
G112 Industrial pellets (nurdles) 1 0.0 micro plastics (< 5mm) 3.2
G197 Other metal 1 0.0 not classified 3.2
G161 Processed timber 1 0.0 agriculture 3.2
G20 Caps and lids 1 0.0 packaging non food 3.2
G190 Paint cans 1 0.0 infrastructure 3.2
G919 Nails, screws, bolts etc. 1 0.0 infrastructure 3.2
G11 Cosmetics for the beach, e.g. sunblock 1 0.0 recreation 3.2
G167 Matches or fireworks 1 0.0 recreation 3.2
G202 Light bulbs 1 0.0 not classified 3.2
G111 Spheruloid pellets < 5mm 1 0.0 micro plastics (< 5mm) 3.2
G71 Shoes sandals 1 0.0 personal items 3.2
G43 Tags fishing or industry (security tags, seals) 1 0.0 recreation 3.2
G97 Toilet fresheners 1 0.0 waste water 3.2
G124 Other plastic or foam products 1 0.0 not classified 3.2
G943 Fencing agriculture, plastic 1 0.0 not classified 3.2
G129 Inner tubes and rubber sheets 1 0.0 not classified 3.2
G214 Oil/tar 1 0.0 infrastructure 3.2
G36 Bags/sacks heavy duty plastic for 25 Kg or mor... 1 0.0 agriculture 3.2
G65 Buckets 1 0.0 agriculture 3.2
G135 Clothes, footware, headware, gloves 1 0.0 personal items 3.2
G138 Shoes and sandals 1 0.0 personal items 3.2
G939 Flowers, plants plastic 1 0.0 not classified 3.2
G938 Toothpicks, dental floss plastic 1 0.0 food and drink 3.2
G29 Combs, brushes and sunglasses 1 0.0 recreation 3.2
G28 Pens, lids, mechanical pencils etc. 1 0.0 personal items 3.2
G926 Chewing gum, often contains plastics 1 0.0 food and drink 3.2